


the breeze

by TheBrokaryotes



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Arthur is away on business, M/M, and I feel like I'm gonna die, and our poor boy gets lonely, fluffy fluffy fluff I got fluff in my tummy, he know ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°), merlin know when that hotline bling, time zone difference!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-13
Updated: 2016-05-13
Packaged: 2018-06-08 02:54:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6836155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBrokaryotes/pseuds/TheBrokaryotes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Arthur has jet lag and misses his little assistant back home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the breeze

**Author's Note:**

> Camelot is in England just bear with me here guys
> 
> THANKS for reading in advance! I made this in like an hour :T

_I can't sleep the whole night through when I'm missing you. I'm thinking it out loud, I wish I could reach out and hold you close._

_\-- Owl City, "Tokyo"_

\--

_Don’t do it._

Arthur’s thumb had been hovering over the call button of his phone for a solid two minutes, mind at war with itself.

_Don’t do it, it’s 3 AM there. He’s not even awake._

The curtains shudder at the window as a breeze passes through the screen. Arthur presses on the cool surface of the cellular device, watching in dreary mesmerization as it responds to the heat of his finger and flickers open to a long list of numbers, some of them missed, some of them received, most of them Merlin.

He stills again, blinking, wondering what it was he was doing. _Calling Merlin,_ he reminds himself. _Calling Merlin like an idiot._

Through his window, the noise of the city was rising up to its highest volume. It made him yearn for the serene silence of Camelot at night, and he wished that he was back home, in his own bed, in his own city, with his own window.

Sighing, he scrolls through the list of numbers towards the bottom, as if the most recent number on the top wasn’t the one he wanted to reach. Startlingly shaky, he nearly brushes over Guin’s number on the list— _God, what a nightmare that would be_ —before his thumb comes to rest on the desired contact.

Feeling in a dream, Arthur puts the device to his ear and sighs. He’s not going to answer, he thinks scoldingly. It’s too damn late, why would he be awake?

_Brrh. Brrh._

The buzzing of the bees in his phone is too noisy for this time of night.

_Brrh. Brrh. Brrh._

The breeze sitting at the window offers little consolation to Arthur’s blood running icy hot. An odd mixture of blissful relief and devastating disappointment bubble about in his stomach when there's no answer for a while, in tandem with one another, sparring for control. They both swell before bursting, the fizz of carbon in a soda shaken much too vigorously before being opened, when the sixth and final ring never comes, replaced instead with a distant, achingly familiar and beautifully sleep-laced voice on the other end.

_"Hello?”_

Dammit, Merlin.

“Hey.” It takes Arthur too long to respond, but when he does, his mouth is dry, and he has to speak again just to hear himself. “Hi.”

Maybe Merlin smiled, because Arthur thought he heard the smallest bit of laughter before he responded. _“What’s up?”_

When the breeze finally rolls into the room, washing it in cool serenity, Arthur lays back on the bed again, pulling the scratchy hotel comforter up his bare chest and letting his head hit the pillow while he responds. “Apparently, you, for some reason.”

Laughter. _“Well, what can I say? Other than the same for you.”_

Something about hearing his boyfriend’s voice, even without any wisdom or pertinence in his words, quelled Arthur’s heart. “Yeah, jet lag is a bitch. Plus eight hours and no in-flight meal.”

_“Yes, I’m sure you’re just dying. Such a shame I can’t be there to cater to your every whim.”_

“Shut the hell up, Merlin.”

 _“Okay, goodnight then!”_ The cheer in his voice at his hour, five hours after Arthur's: it was practically inhuman. Arthur waits a terrifying second, afraid Merlin had actually hung up on him, until chuffed laughter finds its way to the receiver.

 _“Really though,”_ Merlin continues, _“don’t tell me you just called because you couldn’t sleep. That’d be so lame.”_

“Of course that’s not why I called, it's only 10:42 here,” Arthur lies, feeling confident until he realizes he has no follow up statement. “I was just… I wanted to...”

Arthur’s tongue mutinies, tangling itself defiantly while his lips remain parted, and Merlin scoffs on the other end.

 _"You just wanted to hear my voice, hm?”_ Merlin mocks, lapsing into a strange tone. _"Oh, poor me, I’m Arthur and I can’t go a day without talking to my favorite person in the whole world!”_

Arthur tries to growl, but it’s lost to the contentedness of his soul at that moment. Without knowing it, Merlin had given him all he’d called for. He sighs. “Yeah.”

Silence. An uncomfortable shuffle on the receiving end.

 _"What?”_ Merlin’s voice rings through, small like a confused child. _“What do you mean, ‘yeah’?”_

“I just wanted to hear you talk. That’s all. I miss you.”

More silence, more shuffling. It sounds like something drops on the other line. The breeze continues to make good company.

_"Oh. Okay, I guess…”_

Arthur thinks maybe he’s made a mistake, and all of his boyfriend’s reasons to hate him for calling him at three in the damn morning flood to the forefront of his mind.

“Sorry, I know it’s insensitive—”

_“N-no! Don’t, don’t apologize. Honestly, I— I miss you too, Arthur.”_

The cool air dissipates while Arthur feels his face grow hot for the first time in a long while. Even after he and Merlin had started dating, there was little that could find its way under his skin and into his heart. Especially when the lights went out and Merlin was all his, in mind and soul and body, he was still in control; he was always in control.

Here, thousands of miles away, with nothing but an invisible string of electric between the two, Arthur didn’t have control of any kind; he couldn’t manipulate Merlin with looks, his askance glances melted into playful teasing to draw out Merlin’s cunning, gleeful laughter. He couldn’t touch the brunette at all, couldn’t prod at his ribs to get him to start paying attention, couldn’t tug at his hair to pull him back to reality, couldn’t slot his fingers into that shallow valley where his vertebrae met and his spine curved, couldn’t hold his hips and keep him steady while placing firm kisses to his shoulders. Here, all he had was his words, and right now, they evaded him.

He blames the breeze for the crack in his voice. “That’s lame.” He blames the breeze again when he has to turn his head and stare out at the starless sky at Merlin’s response.

_"Haha, well, so are you. But I love you anyway, clotpole.”_

“I’m going to get you for that,” Arthur vows, and Merlin brushes it off with a gentle snicker.

_"I’m sure you will. But right now, you should really get to sleep. You can call me tomorrow morning there before you go to do whatever it is you do.”_

“Play diplomat with my dad?”

 _“Sure, that. Haha.”_ A pause. _“I love you, Arthur.”_

“I love you too.”

_Click._

The world didn’t seem so concrete until Arthur pulled his phone away from his ear, the screen now gross with the oils on his skin. He can’t bring himself to tap the red ‘end’ button, and simply watches the screen fade to grey before clicking his phone off and setting it away. He turns to his side, back to the window. There was a lot more he had wanted to say. _I love you_ , again, just for good measure, and _you’re a dork_ ,of course. _I want you here, you’re my everything, you’re annoying, marry me…_

He sighs. He’d just have to save those words for another time. Maybe that last one for when they weren’t separated by an entire ocean at 3 AM.

The night air swallows his insecurities, onset by hours of restlessness that came before, and his eyes finally close in sincerity. Merlin’s words hum in his mind until, finally, the breeze coasting over him, he falls asleep.


End file.
